GUIDE Fear and Loathing in New Vegas - Feedback

[MonoAccipiter]

I've updated the instructions and added it to the changelog.

Edited December 19, 2015 by MonoAccipiter

[ToskaSuzuki]

Not sure if this has been mentioned before but have we ever considered this mod. I think it's absolutely amazing:

 

FLVJOD Freeside by prodlimen

https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/55951/?

 

It adds a lot of immersion to New Vegas and makes it a cooler place. 

 

I also would recommend the following mod. Not sure if it's an essential mod but you cannot find it on the Nexus.

 

URWLNV Ultimate Edition v2.0 is the successor of Nevada Skies

https://www.moddb.com/mods/urwlnv-ultimate-edition-v20

 

Also I noticed that FCO 3.0 is chosen over New Vegas Redesigned 3. FCO is essential for making awesome faces for the main character. But I do feel New Vegas Redesigned 3 put in a lot more time on the nonplayer characters (NPCS)

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/fnv/comments/3vum5e/fallout_redesigned_or_fallout_character_overhaul/

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/1580790-fallout-character-overhaul-or-fnv-redesigned/

https://www.gunetwork.org/t5953-in-search-for-a-good-character-overhaul

https://www.reacttant.com/r/FalloutMods/comments/3w1sjz/fnv_mod_dilemma_fallout_character_overhaul_30_or

Edited January 5, 2016 by ToskaSuzuki

[MonoAccipiter]

I'll check out FLVJOD Freeside, it looks good, but it's probably incompatible with NVInteriors which occupies a couple of buildings there.

 

FCO 3.0 was chosen of FNVR 3 for a variety of reasons, but most of all because ultimately FNVR 3 had a lot more issues, didn't cover all that FCO 3 did, and isn't supported by FCO anymore (a lot of the files required to run the older versions of FCO with FNVR 3 has disappeared/become extremely difficult to find). You simply won't be able to run both of them together anymore without a fairly large dose of luck, hence we dropped FNVR 3. Ess, Audley and me all agreed that in theory we like what FNVR 3 does a lot, but unfortunately that doesn't translate to practical terms.

 

URNLNV I haven't checked out before, but I'm guessing it's going to have a lot more problems than Nevada Skies, considering almost every mod that conflicts with Nevada Skies already has a patch for it.

[Audley]

URWLNV Ultimate Edition actually has a patch for ILO (I believe). However, like every weather mod for New Vegas that adds rain/snow it suffers from the same issues. The rain meshes/textures are too high quality and during storming will cause your FPS to drop by 30 or more; regardless of how powerful your rig is. This happens with Nevada Skies as well as Project Reality and RWLE. The rain meshes also cause the famous "Junknado" issue in certain situations. I am not sure why this happens but I know xCamo and RoyBatty are looking on fixing this for RWLE. These are reasons why I stick to the regular Realistic Wasteland Lighting only. The only weather mod that adds rain that is not affected by the above issues I believe is Hitman's 47 Weather mod found on the GUN to go with his ENB. The weather mod uses the meshes/textures from the Honest Hearts DLC for rain and stuff. However, the weather mod doesn't really look good by itself as it's made to go with ENB and I don't think it covers the DLC. :\

[ToskaSuzuki]

@Monoaccipter

 

Ah that makes sense. Totally agree. Truth be told I haven't been successful in running the two together. Been running into red "!" and purplish textures.

 

How about this mod here. The armor is awesome for the Caesar's New Regime. Maybe we could include a tutorial or a patch that would apply the Caesar's Legion armors over the vanilla ones but exclude the "Legion Huntress"..(no chance in hell the Legion would have a woman in their ranks). 

 

Caesar's New Regime

https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/45557/?

 

also this mod looks cool. 

 

House of Horrors

https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/57172/?

Edited January 5, 2016 by ToskaSuzuki

[MonoAccipiter]

For now the Nevada Skies mod works more than fine, and I'm not really up for vigorously testing any candidates myself, so it's unlikely it'll change soon as I'm mostly maintaining the guide myself.

 

As for the suggestions, I'm unlikely to vote back Caesar's New Regime for inclusion any time soon. Firstly because as someone who's spent a lot of time studying roman history over the years, I can't help but feel like the armors look a lot more like the plates wore by ancient Greek hoplites (from either the Peloponnesian Wars or the Greco-Persian Wars, though I presume the latter has been visited more by popular culture) than the roman platemail traditionally wore by legionaries. You could probably make a case for Caesar's Legion (in FNV) to have no need to copy legionnarie uniforms because bullets are a fairly different challenge than swords and spear, and frankly I'd agree, but then again why would they feel the need to copy of even bulkier and heavier armor off a culture there's no record of them even having heard of? Anyhow, the whole Greek hoplite combined with Roman legionnaries thing was cool for the Imperial Legion in Oblvion, but it doesn't really work for me in Fallout: New Vegas.

 

In addition to that those normalmaps (bumpmaps) on the plate armors also look kinda odd to me, would be hard to say without seeing it in game, but they look weirdly flat. Then there's the plastic looking visors which were cool on the Sierra Madre Security Armor, but not so much when attached on hoplite helmets.

 

House of Horrors looks interesting, but It's not really within the scope of the guide and considering the amount of plugin files we already have, it's too small to be worth adding. Thanks for the feedback nonetheless.

[Audley]

Thank you for your suggestions Toska! :)

 

Aside from the stuff Mono listed above, while I was testing Caesar's New Regime a year ago there was a lot of issues. It's a good mod but not very polished. It hasn't been updated since 2013 and I doubt it will see an update anytime soon to fix the various issues. My main issue with it is balance issues.

 

As for the House of Horrors mod - it looks really cool and is something I will probably play myself at some point. However, there isn't really room for it in the guide right now. Perhaps if we ever do an "optional" quests section then we will fit it in there.

[EssArrBee]

I wonder if quests could just be merged. Never tried it since some are ESMs and I don't messing with those.

 

Would it be better to use the bash tag merge script for the merges than having people manually do it in Wrye Flash? I think that might save a step. 

[ThePhoenixBird]

I just registered on this website to thank you all for keeping this amazing mod collection updated!

[Audley]

I wonder if quests could just be merged. Never tried it since some are ESMs and I don't messing with those.

 

Would it be better to use the bash tag merge script for the merges than having people manually do it in Wrye Flash? I think that might save a step. 

I love merging mods. However, the only two sections where I don't merge things are the UI section and the quest mods section. Quest mods have too many records to merge them (the ones that are ESP's). Not only does it take forever, but they often fail to merge completely. I tried to merge some of Someguy's mods together and they all failed. Only the smaller quest mods merge well. Like The Collector for instance. Also, even if you could manage to merge a bunch of quest mods I imagine it would cause FPS drops and bloating due to the massive amount of records. :\

[EssArrBee]

Someone made a mod that adds extra LOD objects. https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/61206/?

 

That is something that is sorely needed in game. 

[MonoAccipiter]

I saw that, but I might not be able to write down any instructions for it until Sunday. Now if only I could get the LOD texture generator to work with MO hmm...

Edited January 7, 2016 by MonoAccipiter

[EssArrBee]

This looks nice: https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/61213/?

 

Might try it out in game and see if it's an improvement over w/e the current stuff is. 

[MonoAccipiter]

Looks interesting.

 

I feel bad about not having been able to add much to the guide in the past couple of weeks, but I've simply been drained of energy when not expending what little I had on my pistol. I did however try my hand at fixing something that's been bothering me with ADAM for the longest time, namely the wanted poster with the color-printed image of the outcast ranger's head. It wasn't as easy as I'd hoped but I managed to rid it of the harsh outlines and give it a bit less color (the photo he'd slapped down the middle, which I found rather strange considering how well done the rest of the worn paper is).

 

Here's a comparison picture (new one on the right):

[Van555]

Hey guys love the mod and everything and even with a few dozen extra kids have mostly gotten it to work but I always have one stupid problem.

 

The Brahmin texture won't show up!

It's like the only thing that's breaks.

 

Honestly at this point I'm thinking of finding the vanilla Brahmin texture somewhere and making a small texture mod for it.

 

Any suggestions or ideas?